August 1, 2018

Twitter Accused of 'Shadow Banning' Republicans

Last week, Vice reported that “Twitter is limiting the visibility of prominent Republicans in search results — a technique known as ‘shadow banning’ — in what it says is a side effect of its attempts to improve the quality of discourse on the platform.” The story has since been updated to note that “Twitter appears to have adjusted its platform overnight to no longer limit the visibility of some prominent Republicans in its search results.” (Vice)

It’s not one’s political views, but rather your behavior on the platform that determines the ranking: “If you are blocked a lot or tweet at a lot of accounts you don’t follow, for example, Twitter raises an eyebrow. Reading between the lines... it’s those users who are being flagged by the site’s ‘quality filter’ and, therefore, may be downplayed in search.”

Washington Post

The right is disturbed by the revelations and finds Twitter’s response underwhelming.

“By looking to indicators like frequency of reports and connections to rule-violating accounts, Twitter has created a feedback loop that rewards its users for false ‘abuse’ reports. The more you report your political opponents’ tweets, and the more you get them and their friends suspended, the more Twitter will downrank their content in search results.”

Breitbart

“Twitter’s shadow-banning of Nunes, Gaetz, et al is a major problem. But it’s not a problem government should attempt to solve. It should be pointed out Twitter may have fixed the shadow-banning... because it was exposed by Vice, and people complained. That’s how the free market